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Species diversity may have already been reduced prior to mass extinction events due to mingling of species possible when formerly separate continents were merged. However, there is strong evidence that climate barriers continued to separate ecological communities in different parts of Pangaea.
Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers. In the modern sense of the term "continent", Eurasia is more readily identifiable as a "continent", and Europe has occasionally been described as a subcontinent of Eurasia. [68]
Like most breakups, the separation of continents is not a quick and painless process.. Take the supercontinent Gondwana, for example. Some 180 million years ago, the landmass separated from what ...
Continental drift is the theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. [1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.
The Earth’s unusual composition is necessary for life on our planet – but we still do not know how it came about
To separate supercontinents from other groupings, a limit has been proposed in which a continent must include at least about 75% of the continental crust then in existence in order to qualify as a supercontinent. [5] Moving under the forces of plate tectonics, supercontinents have assembled and dispersed multiple times in the geologic past.
Cartoon of a tectonic collision between two continents. In geology, continental collision is a phenomenon of plate tectonics that occurs at convergent boundaries.Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together.
Map of Pangaea with modern continental outlines. The supercontinent cycle is the quasi-periodic aggregation and dispersal of Earth's continental crust.There are varying opinions as to whether the amount of continental crust is increasing, decreasing, or staying about the same, but it is agreed that the Earth's crust is constantly being reconfigured.